December 18, 2019 • 25 mins
Far too many people measure the success or failure of their exercise program solely on whether or not they lose weight. There are many positive benefits of exercise that far exceed the number on a scale. Listen and hear a handful of simple, yet powerful metrics you can use to measure the progress of your exercise program, and prove to yourself that your workouts are worthwhile.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Fitness Disrupted, a production of I Heart Radio
Welcome to Fitness Disrupted. I am Tom Holland, So how
can you measure the success of your program going forward?
After the scale stops moving? Do you stop exercising? And
(00:22):
I get it, you're frustrated. I get it, you've lost weight,
you're plateau ng or maybe even moving backwards a little bit.
But does that mean that your cardio vascular exercise, that
your strength training routine is worthless? Is not worthwhile? And
the answer is a resounding not even close. There is.
Weight loss is not to be all end all, and
(00:44):
I will qualify it one final time. Yes, it is
important to get to our healthy weight. Yes, carrying excess
weight comes with multiple health implications. But but that's okay
because the focus is not just on the weight loss.
The myriad benefits of exercise so far exceed just that
(01:05):
number on a scale. And that is one of the
major problems. I will say it over and over and
over again. Is one of the primary focuses of this show,
because the primary focus of so many people is just
weight loss, and they stop exercising and get down on
themselves and think they are not successful because that stupid
number on a scale doesn't move, And it's so much
more than that. It's mental, it's it's disease, all of
(01:28):
the things that I talk about on just about every show.
But today I want to keep it simple. I always
want to keep it simple, but today even more so. Okay,
I want you to have certain ways where you can
start to say, oh, I am being successful. Oh I
can measure it in a different way. I can see
results over time that doesn't involve my just stepping on
(01:49):
a scale, because it's it's so much more than that.
It's just so much more than that. So I'm gonna
start with one that I know you're gonna grow, and
many of you're gonna grow and go no way, but
hear me out, don't turn it off. Push ups. Okay,
push ups. I know so many people bad association, bad
jim teachers, bad coaches. You don't like the push up.
(02:09):
But this is the privacy of your own own home,
and this is functional strength and measurable strength. Okay. And
there's even studies. There's one study. Just reference it really quickly.
Two thousand, nineteen, Journal of American Medical Association. Association between
push up, exercise capacity and future cardio vascular events among
active adult men. And the real quick takeaway was people
(02:32):
who could do more pushups had to reduced risk of
cardio vascular events. Now, obviously the push up is not
this be all and all heart protective thing. It's it's
a multi factoral thing, but an interesting studying. Nonetheless, people
could do more pushups reduced risk of cardio vascular UH
disease and events. Okay, so there's science. They're real recent
(02:54):
science between between saying that push ups are good, all right,
but I don't I don't even really care about that.
I just want you to feel better about the number
of push ups you can do. And most of you
who are listening to this show who have significant weight
to lose or or that have lost a significant amount
(03:15):
of weight. This is not for you hardcore um exercise
people out there. Okay, it can be, but I just
want to qualify that because I'm gonna the numbers are
gonna be relatively low for those people, but I don't care,
and we can modify them up because they count. These
eight things should be for everyone, but I'm gonna give
the numbers first and foremost for those of you who
(03:37):
are really struggling who have again significant amount of weight
to lose or have lost a bunch and still need
to lose a bunch. Because it's not about that scale.
You're gonna You're gonna stay at the same place for
a while. You may go backwards a little bit, but
you don't stop. So push ups. Ideally, I want you
to be able to do ten. Can you do more? Absolutely,
(03:58):
But many of you listening probably can't do one. And
in that research study, the one of the researchers was
asked how many he thought people could do and he
said most people couldn't do ten. I think he said
people he believes could probably do ten, and that number
may be lower, but ten, and that could be on
your knees or off. Slowly build up. This is the
(04:21):
way you can measure the success of your program. You
should be doing strength training and start with your knees
if you're just starting out, and actually if you're super
new to it, off a wall. I've had so many
clients over the years do it that way. And if
you're a little bit older or got an injury, off
a wall, ten build up to ten. Then if you're
off the wall, you go to your knees and then
(04:43):
when you get ten good ones on your knees, you're
gonna be able to do one, two or three, maybe
two off your knees. But that's a metric, a goal,
something to build up to. And again you can do
more if you want, but you don't have to. But
with all of these metrics, it's about being better than
you were yesterday. But these all matter. So when you
(05:08):
can do ten push ups, you're gonna have functional strength
your shoulders, your chest, your triceps are gonna be stronger.
Is going to make your activities of daily living that
much better. Okay, number two, so you got your push ups.
Upper body strength plank one of the greatest, simplest, best
exercises to do for your core strength. Why set up
(05:30):
before in different shows. Fit's all the criteria of great exercise,
just like the push up. Anyone can do them at
any place, at any time, you don't need equipment, and
they are totally modifiable for the true beginner all the
way up to the super strong person. Okay, it's what
you can do, and the plank works the front and
(05:50):
the back of your abdominal region, so amazing. Okay. The
goal for those truly just starting out losing the weight
needs something alreaty seconds. That's what you gonna build up to.
You may do five seconds at the start. Most likely
you may do three. And I will say it over
and over and over again. Your goal is to be yesterday.
(06:11):
There is no just, there is no only, there's no oh,
I only did three seconds. No, you did three seconds,
and you didn't do three seconds the day before. And
the goal is to do it again and to do three,
maybe four seconds, thirty seconds. Ultimately you can build up
to a minute, but for most of you are just
starting out, have that way to lose thirty seconds. And
(06:31):
I want a perfectly straight body, so good form, perfectly
straight body. And if you want questions about how to
do push ups planks with good form, just google Tom
Holland push up, Tom Holland plank. You get a bunch
of free videos that that pop up. And finally, one
(06:53):
more strength move. We did up our body, we did core.
We give you one more strength move, squats. But here's
the the caveat. I want you to be able to
get out of a chair without using your hands. Get
up out of a chair ten times. I want ten squats,
So sit down in the chair, get up, No handrails,
(07:14):
no anything that is great functional strength. So now we
have an upper body, we have a core and a
lower body metric where you can start to get excited.
Now I know again, but trust me, just start doing it.
It will increase your enjoyment of daily living as you
(07:37):
build that kind of strength upper body strength, core strength,
lower body strength. And for those of you who are
a little more advanced, here you go. I want you
to be able to get up and down out of
the chair with one leg, no hands, alternating legs ten times.
All right, push ups. I want ten good ones off
your knees by that's the goal. Start with wall if
(07:58):
you must. If you have do, go to the knees,
off your knees, ten good ones, slow, full range of motion,
I should say, plank perfectly straight body thirty seconds if
you want to build up to sixty awesome. No equipment
for any of these people. Privacy of your own home
squats chair. And that's also for safety reasons. But whenever
(08:20):
I fly, and I do so frequently, I am always
not amazed. But how many people have to hold onto
the back of my chair to get out of their seat?
I get it. Weak loutes, weak leg muscles. But that's
gonna lead to issues too. So all of these things
when you can do ten push ups, wow, even cardiovascar disease,
it's gonna potentially be connected to that. I'll leave it
(08:42):
at that. Plank squats, that is just total body. Great
way to to just really start to quantify your results
from your exercise program. That's not the scale. And again
it's be ting yesterday. Al Right, now we're gonna get
(09:03):
away from the exercises. You're like, thank goodness. Resting heart rate.
I love resting heart rate because I'm an endurance guy
and mine is super low because I've spent years doing it. Alright,
So the average heart rate resting is sixts per minute. Okay,
And generally, you know, a lower heart rate at rest
means your heart is more efficient. It's very simple concept.
(09:25):
For every time it squishes, it sends out more blood,
so boom boom boom boo boop. The faster it goes,
the less efficient, the less effective it is. The stronger
it is. It's a muscle, people, it's squeezes. The stronger
it is, the more cardiovascular exercise you do, thicker the
walls get. It is a muscle. It builds up all right,
and that is so important. That is so much more
(09:48):
important than the scale at some point in time. People
mine on a good day when I'm super rested is
right around forty, which is again years of cardiovascular exercise.
But sixty two hundred. Now, how do you do that?
How do you check that? I'm just gonna give you
the you know, you can take your pulse and do
(10:08):
the math right ten seconds, take your pulse, your wrist,
your neck, uh, and multiplied by six. Super easy though today.
I used to use that example many years ago, but
now watches you can use your phone. They have apps.
Here's the thing, though, you want to do it ideally
a couple of minutes after you wake up in the morning,
so ly in bed, your alarm goes off. That's going
(10:29):
to elevate it a little bit. But ly in bed
take it there. Now you can use I will put
my heart rate monitor chest strap right there. Uh. You
can have the risk based heart rate monitors now and
your watch. That is so important. That's a great one.
They can get you excited. That's fun. You wake up
in the morning, you go, oh, my resting heart rate
used to be eighty beats a minute. I've been exercising
(10:50):
for three or four or five months, doing my cardio,
going on my walks, and it's lower. Guess what number
one killer of people is heart disease, not being overweight. Yes,
they're connected, but let's start to monitor. Measure the metrics
of your heart, resting, heart rate. Get that heart rate down.
That's number four. And now blood pressure super cheap. Now
(11:14):
you don't have to go to the doctor. These are
all the things you can do at home. This is
fitness technology too. I have one right here in my studio.
Blood pressure monitor. Get all these great new pieces of
equipment to try out, super inexpensive. Now it's super important.
So blood pressure, it's going to measure you know how
much pressure is hitting your blood vessel walls as your
heart contracts and relaxes, And that's super important. You don't
(11:36):
want it to be too high and stay that way
for a really long time. That's that's just not good,
all right, and so easy to measure at home. All right?
What are healthy blood pressures? You can obviously google this,
but I'll give it to you. Normal is generally less
than one twenty. So your systolic, right, that's your upper number.
(11:59):
You want to I deally to be less than one
twenty and your diastolic to be the lower number less
than eighty. It's elevated if it's from nine, all right
and less than eighty high blood pressure. Now they're saying
one thirty to one thirty nine and eight to eighty nine.
That's stage one officially now stage two one forty or
(12:19):
higher at the top, ninety or higher, so that's stage two.
They've they've made changes over the years, so one forty
or higher. You're now in uh stage two of high
blood pressure, ninety or higher for the diastolic. And now
you're really up there if you're higher than one eighty
and obviously higher than one twenty four the diastolic. But
again you know we're in the holidays as I record
(12:41):
this show. Great gift for yourself for your family. Measure
metrics we can control. You don't have to go to
the doctor. When you go go to the doctor, you get
like six minutes, so fun things, smart things, healthy things
to measure and to start to gauge. This is we'll
go to your cardio and also to your health as
who lose weight. These numbers are going to go down,
(13:03):
all right, not just the scale. We're gonna get off
that pun intended literally speaking. You can still go on it, obviously,
but we're not gonna measure the success as I keep saying,
all right, number six daily steps. Almost everyone has a
phone or some way to measure your daily steps. Really important.
(13:24):
And guess what I'm not giving you that arbitrary ten
thousand step number. That is an arbitrary number. Japanese company
back in the day came out with a device and
they called it in Japanese the ten thousand step device,
essentially based on just they did some math in their
heads basically and came up with that number. Is a
(13:45):
little bit of a science to it, but it doesn't
really matter. If you are walking three thousand steps today,
I want three thousand and one or more tomorrow. But
I don't want five thousand, six thousand. I want a
little bit more that success daily steps a little better
than yesterday. If you did five thousand yesterday, I want
ideally five thousand, one hundred five thousand, and you can
(14:10):
go more. You go a thousand, two thousand more. But
I don't want steps to be too big. I don't
want it to you to get injured. I don't want
you to get burned out. I want you to just improve,
all right. Number seven Sleep Now I'm horrible with this
if you listen to prior shows, I don't get enough sleep.
I go to bed late, I get up early. I
(14:32):
just do. And that's really bad when you do endurance
races where sleep is crucial to rest in recovery when
you're training as much. So I'm working on it. No
one's perfect. And now you've got all these great gadgets
that monitor that. You can also just look at your
clock when you go to bed, but you can have
now these fun different risk based generally speaking monitors, different
(14:56):
watches and bands and things like that. Other ways to
do it as well, but they can even tell you more.
It's just fun. So it's fun to look at these
numbers and see improvement and not so easy. And I listen,
I get excited if I go, oh my gosh, I
got more than four or five hours. I know that's
good for me. And the cool thing about the technology
everybody is that it keeps track of it for you
(15:19):
because we forget. So when you invest in this equipment,
this technology, it's not an expense, it's an investment. You'll
hear me say that over and over. Uh, it's gonna
track you over time. It's gonna do things that you
wouldn't do on your own and to be able to
look back and go, oh my gosh. You know last
month I averaged five hours six hours of sleep. Now
I'm getting seven or eight because sleep. It's connected that
(15:43):
you when you don't get enough sleep to weight gain,
there's obvious reasons for that. But the more sleep we get,
the better. Now that should be said, and I'll do
a separate show about sleep. Some people get by on
much less, so there is some individual variation there. And
a great rule thumb is you shouldn't need an alarm
clock to get you out of it in the morning.
(16:04):
If you're still really tired and sleeping, your your body
is trying to tell you something. Another show there though,
So daily sleep. We got daily steps and daily sleep.
And the fun thing is, again, as I do the
show around the holidays, great holiday gift for yourself for
someone else, not giving you any brands, not pitching anything.
I'm just saying, invest in your health, invest in ways
(16:25):
to track the success of your plan. Are you walking more,
are you moving more? Are you sleeping more? And one
final one I had to throw in there because it
came up another comment someone reached out to me about
exactly what we're talking about. They lost weight, but they're
not losing it right now. But one thing, and oh
my gosh, back when I was a trainer, this was
(16:47):
like one of the single greatest results, almost above this
the scale. So many people are on medications that are
are centered around weight gain and and and things like that,
and and that aren't even related to that depression, things
like that as well. Getting off medications. I left that
till the end because it is so darn important. If
(17:09):
I could swear, I would, and I could, but I
don't want to because I went to church every Sunday
and I'm still a little you know. Anyway. Eight things
finishing with getting off medications. It's so important. Can you
get off medications and be plateaued at your weight? Yes?
(17:32):
Can you gain some weight and get off your medications? Yes?
Are there still connected? There is there core, of course
there is. But all of these things can happen somewhat
independent or at different times in your weight lost journey.
And now you're going to say I am being successful,
and they are more. They're more for other shows, but
(17:53):
I wanted to keep this first one simple and just
stuff today. And if you hate push ups, I get it.
We're gonna wrap this all up when I come back
from the break, but I want you to embrace all
eight of these if they relate to you. You may
not be on medications. So many people are, though, and
(18:14):
that is my favorite thing. I had someone recently say
to me that they were off all their medications. They
weren't at their target weight. So what they were feeling better,
they were moving better, they were sleeping better. Awesome. All right,
(18:34):
when we come back, I gonna wrap this all up.
I'm Tom Holland this is Fitness Disrupted. We will be
right back. Eight ways to measure success that doesn't have
to do with weight loss. There you go, Let's go
(18:54):
through it one more time. Push ups, upper body strength. Okay, now,
I know I'm gonna hear you say, oh, I'm not
gonna do him. Tom, please do this stuff now. I'm
not asking you to do an hour of exercise. I'm
just asking you drop to the floor or get on
the wall and do a couple build up to ten.
(19:16):
I'm telling you that the way to to to bring
this show together is back to self efficacy. That there's
so many articles out there that that even though I
always talk about the simplicity of the process, it is nuanced.
(19:36):
This whole journey I'm talking about health and wellness is
nuanced in a way that is almost impossible to get
into an article or even one show, which is why
we have to do many And the nuance is that
it's all connected. Is that the self efficacy part is
essential belief that you have control, old belief that you
(20:00):
can do it, and my new book coming out that
is an enormous part of it. I start to hold like,
if you don't believe that you have control, then why
even bother it's your genetics you can't get Those are
the myths that I debunk in my book and quite
frequently on this show. You have control, but it's it's
(20:22):
it's suddenly doing things like oh, you you just don't
like push ups, and suddenly you say I'm gonna do
with Tom said I'm gonna try it, and then after
a couple of weeks, a couple of months, you're you're
doing tent push ups off your knees or on your
knees for the first time. I guess what you feel
better about yourself and you get up off the floor
and you go make a better food choice because you
(20:42):
feel better about yourself and you actually are probably nicer,
and you're in a better mood, and people react. It's
all connected, and you feel better about yourself and you
move more. You don't stay on the couch as a
long You do more things. You make better food choices,
you make better choices all the way around. It's all connected.
(21:05):
So push ups, plank, that back pain. Being able to
do thirty seconds of a plank, and again many of
you are gonna go twenty. I'm sorry, two seconds, three seconds.
Take the words only in just out. It's not that
you just did three seconds or you only did five.
That's what you did. That's your starting point. That's the
point of this show. Metrics improvement ways to measure your Listen,
(21:27):
you're getting on the scale. So you started somewhere. Improvement
is improvement, and it's your journey. No one else's squats
love this lower leg issues. So common people can't run.
Why can't you run? What you got weaknesses? And you
don't have to run, But I would like you to
fix the reasons you can't. It's always been insane to
(21:48):
me that doctors just don't run. Hey doctor, should we
figure out why they can't fix that instead of just
telling them not to do something that is health issue.
It's a literally a weakness that is going to lead
to so many other issues. We don't fix that. They
don't have to run, But people need to figure out.
You need to figure out why you can't do what
you want to do and fix it, all right, So
(22:10):
squats just being able to get up and down out
of a chair both legs to start, and if you
start to get super advanced one leg. Resting heart rate,
you can use your fingers, check your pulse and again
this new world of the internet. If you don't know
how to do it, quick google, and if you have
the means and the desire, grab a piece of fitness
(22:33):
technology and watch your phone. So many different ways to
measure that you're resting. Already a great way to start
the day. Get that number and start to see that
number go down. Your blood pressure, same thing, check that
use you know you and your spouse. Those numbers will
go down as you exercise more, and you may not
see the scale go down as much as you start
(22:53):
to see that go down all right, daily steps awesome,
does not have to be ten thousand. Get a baselin,
do it for a week. What's your average, and then
start to beat that average. And again the beauty of
the fitness technology is it stores it all for you.
I love that back when I was a coach. Is
so powerful. You know, you can use a book, you
can use the technology, the online platforms. But before race,
(23:18):
when everyone's freaking out myself when I would do mind,
you go, oh, I didn't train enough because we forget
and then you open that journal, you look online at
your training. Your Holy cow, I forgot how much I did.
Not about the scale. This is about other metrics and
keeping record of it and looking back and being proud
of the changes you've made. Sleep that's one of them.
(23:38):
If you can do it, I'm working on it. Not
very successful at it yet, but work in progress. And finally,
holy smokes, if you're someone on meds and you've knocked one,
two or three. So many people are in so many
different things, the medications have got better, and don't listen you.
Medications are essential for so many people, and never go
off them without your doctor's consent and recommen dation. All
(24:00):
those kind of things. But when your doctor says, hey,
you don't need this anymore. Your blood pressure down, your
numbers are better, your triglyceride, your HDL, your l D,
all those things that I'm saving for another show, Holy cow,
you should be proud of that way more in my opinion,
then seeing that scale go down each and every week
just doesn't work that way. And there you go. Eight ways.
(24:22):
I know some of you like, some you don't, but hey,
embrace what you can. Challenge yourself to do those things
you don't want to, because I'm not asking a lot.
And the self affocacy comes from being successful. That's something
you didn't think you could do. And there are no
small steps, they're all steps forward. Eight ways to measure
(24:46):
success of your exercise routine that don't involve the scale.
Now you have it. If you have a little extra time,
please rate the show. Leave a comment. I read them.
I appreciate them. Tell your friends, tell your family, share
the show. I really appreciate it. My goal is to
help you have your best life. My goal is to
(25:07):
help people live better, look better, and live longer. Look better,
feel better, live longer. And that's awesome and doesn't matter
why you start, you get the other two. I'm Tom Holland.
This is Fitness Disrupted. Believe in Yourself. Fitness Disrupted is
(25:29):
a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from
my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Fitness Disrupted, a production of I Heart Radio
Welcome to Fitness Disrupted. I am Tom Holland, So how
can you measure the success of your program going forward?
After the scale stops moving? Do you stop exercising? And
(00:22):
I get it, you're frustrated. I get it, you've lost weight,
you're plateau ng or maybe even moving backwards a little bit.
But does that mean that your cardio vascular exercise, that
your strength training routine is worthless? Is not worthwhile? And
the answer is a resounding not even close. There is.
Weight loss is not to be all end all, and
(00:44):
I will qualify it one final time. Yes, it is
important to get to our healthy weight. Yes, carrying excess
weight comes with multiple health implications. But but that's okay
because the focus is not just on the weight loss.
The myriad benefits of exercise so far exceed just that
(01:05):
number on a scale. And that is one of the
major problems. I will say it over and over and
over again. Is one of the primary focuses of this show,
because the primary focus of so many people is just
weight loss, and they stop exercising and get down on
themselves and think they are not successful because that stupid
number on a scale doesn't move, And it's so much
more than that. It's mental, it's it's disease, all of
(01:28):
the things that I talk about on just about every show.
But today I want to keep it simple. I always
want to keep it simple, but today even more so. Okay,
I want you to have certain ways where you can
start to say, oh, I am being successful. Oh I
can measure it in a different way. I can see
results over time that doesn't involve my just stepping on
(01:49):
a scale, because it's it's so much more than that.
It's just so much more than that. So I'm gonna
start with one that I know you're gonna grow, and
many of you're gonna grow and go no way, but
hear me out, don't turn it off. Push ups. Okay,
push ups. I know so many people bad association, bad
jim teachers, bad coaches. You don't like the push up.
(02:09):
But this is the privacy of your own own home,
and this is functional strength and measurable strength. Okay. And
there's even studies. There's one study. Just reference it really quickly.
Two thousand, nineteen, Journal of American Medical Association. Association between
push up, exercise capacity and future cardio vascular events among
active adult men. And the real quick takeaway was people
(02:32):
who could do more pushups had to reduced risk of
cardio vascular events. Now, obviously the push up is not
this be all and all heart protective thing. It's it's
a multi factoral thing, but an interesting studying. Nonetheless, people
could do more pushups reduced risk of cardio vascular UH
disease and events. Okay, so there's science. They're real recent
(02:54):
science between between saying that push ups are good, all right,
but I don't I don't even really care about that.
I just want you to feel better about the number
of push ups you can do. And most of you
who are listening to this show who have significant weight
to lose or or that have lost a significant amount
(03:15):
of weight. This is not for you hardcore um exercise
people out there. Okay, it can be, but I just
want to qualify that because I'm gonna the numbers are
gonna be relatively low for those people, but I don't care,
and we can modify them up because they count. These
eight things should be for everyone, but I'm gonna give
the numbers first and foremost for those of you who
(03:37):
are really struggling who have again significant amount of weight
to lose or have lost a bunch and still need
to lose a bunch. Because it's not about that scale.
You're gonna You're gonna stay at the same place for
a while. You may go backwards a little bit, but
you don't stop. So push ups. Ideally, I want you
to be able to do ten. Can you do more? Absolutely,
(03:58):
But many of you listening probably can't do one. And
in that research study, the one of the researchers was
asked how many he thought people could do and he
said most people couldn't do ten. I think he said
people he believes could probably do ten, and that number
may be lower, but ten, and that could be on
your knees or off. Slowly build up. This is the
(04:21):
way you can measure the success of your program. You
should be doing strength training and start with your knees
if you're just starting out, and actually if you're super
new to it, off a wall. I've had so many
clients over the years do it that way. And if
you're a little bit older or got an injury, off
a wall, ten build up to ten. Then if you're
off the wall, you go to your knees and then
(04:43):
when you get ten good ones on your knees, you're
gonna be able to do one, two or three, maybe
two off your knees. But that's a metric, a goal,
something to build up to. And again you can do
more if you want, but you don't have to. But
with all of these metrics, it's about being better than
you were yesterday. But these all matter. So when you
(05:08):
can do ten push ups, you're gonna have functional strength
your shoulders, your chest, your triceps are gonna be stronger.
Is going to make your activities of daily living that
much better. Okay, number two, so you got your push ups.
Upper body strength plank one of the greatest, simplest, best
exercises to do for your core strength. Why set up
(05:30):
before in different shows. Fit's all the criteria of great exercise,
just like the push up. Anyone can do them at
any place, at any time, you don't need equipment, and
they are totally modifiable for the true beginner all the
way up to the super strong person. Okay, it's what
you can do, and the plank works the front and
(05:50):
the back of your abdominal region, so amazing. Okay. The
goal for those truly just starting out losing the weight
needs something alreaty seconds. That's what you gonna build up to.
You may do five seconds at the start. Most likely
you may do three. And I will say it over
and over and over again. Your goal is to be yesterday.
(06:11):
There is no just, there is no only, there's no oh,
I only did three seconds. No, you did three seconds,
and you didn't do three seconds the day before. And
the goal is to do it again and to do three,
maybe four seconds, thirty seconds. Ultimately you can build up
to a minute, but for most of you are just
starting out, have that way to lose thirty seconds. And
(06:31):
I want a perfectly straight body, so good form, perfectly
straight body. And if you want questions about how to
do push ups planks with good form, just google Tom
Holland push up, Tom Holland plank. You get a bunch
of free videos that that pop up. And finally, one
(06:53):
more strength move. We did up our body, we did core.
We give you one more strength move, squats. But here's
the the caveat. I want you to be able to
get out of a chair without using your hands. Get
up out of a chair ten times. I want ten squats,
So sit down in the chair, get up, No handrails,
(07:14):
no anything that is great functional strength. So now we
have an upper body, we have a core and a
lower body metric where you can start to get excited.
Now I know again, but trust me, just start doing it.
It will increase your enjoyment of daily living as you
(07:37):
build that kind of strength upper body strength, core strength,
lower body strength. And for those of you who are
a little more advanced, here you go. I want you
to be able to get up and down out of
the chair with one leg, no hands, alternating legs ten times.
All right, push ups. I want ten good ones off
your knees by that's the goal. Start with wall if
(07:58):
you must. If you have do, go to the knees,
off your knees, ten good ones, slow, full range of motion,
I should say, plank perfectly straight body thirty seconds if
you want to build up to sixty awesome. No equipment
for any of these people. Privacy of your own home
squats chair. And that's also for safety reasons. But whenever
(08:20):
I fly, and I do so frequently, I am always
not amazed. But how many people have to hold onto
the back of my chair to get out of their seat?
I get it. Weak loutes, weak leg muscles. But that's
gonna lead to issues too. So all of these things
when you can do ten push ups, wow, even cardiovascar disease,
it's gonna potentially be connected to that. I'll leave it
(08:42):
at that. Plank squats, that is just total body. Great
way to to just really start to quantify your results
from your exercise program. That's not the scale. And again
it's be ting yesterday. Al Right, now we're gonna get
(09:03):
away from the exercises. You're like, thank goodness. Resting heart rate.
I love resting heart rate because I'm an endurance guy
and mine is super low because I've spent years doing it. Alright,
So the average heart rate resting is sixts per minute. Okay,
And generally, you know, a lower heart rate at rest
means your heart is more efficient. It's very simple concept.
(09:25):
For every time it squishes, it sends out more blood,
so boom boom boom boo boop. The faster it goes,
the less efficient, the less effective it is. The stronger
it is. It's a muscle, people, it's squeezes. The stronger
it is, the more cardiovascular exercise you do, thicker the
walls get. It is a muscle. It builds up all right,
and that is so important. That is so much more
(09:48):
important than the scale at some point in time. People
mine on a good day when I'm super rested is
right around forty, which is again years of cardiovascular exercise.
But sixty two hundred. Now, how do you do that?
How do you check that? I'm just gonna give you
the you know, you can take your pulse and do
(10:08):
the math right ten seconds, take your pulse, your wrist,
your neck, uh, and multiplied by six. Super easy though today.
I used to use that example many years ago, but
now watches you can use your phone. They have apps.
Here's the thing, though, you want to do it ideally
a couple of minutes after you wake up in the morning,
so ly in bed, your alarm goes off. That's going
(10:29):
to elevate it a little bit. But ly in bed
take it there. Now you can use I will put
my heart rate monitor chest strap right there. Uh. You
can have the risk based heart rate monitors now and
your watch. That is so important. That's a great one.
They can get you excited. That's fun. You wake up
in the morning, you go, oh, my resting heart rate
used to be eighty beats a minute. I've been exercising
(10:50):
for three or four or five months, doing my cardio,
going on my walks, and it's lower. Guess what number
one killer of people is heart disease, not being overweight. Yes,
they're connected, but let's start to monitor. Measure the metrics
of your heart, resting, heart rate. Get that heart rate down.
That's number four. And now blood pressure super cheap. Now
(11:14):
you don't have to go to the doctor. These are
all the things you can do at home. This is
fitness technology too. I have one right here in my studio.
Blood pressure monitor. Get all these great new pieces of
equipment to try out, super inexpensive. Now it's super important.
So blood pressure, it's going to measure you know how
much pressure is hitting your blood vessel walls as your
heart contracts and relaxes, And that's super important. You don't
(11:36):
want it to be too high and stay that way
for a really long time. That's that's just not good,
all right, and so easy to measure at home. All right?
What are healthy blood pressures? You can obviously google this,
but I'll give it to you. Normal is generally less
than one twenty. So your systolic, right, that's your upper number.
(11:59):
You want to I deally to be less than one
twenty and your diastolic to be the lower number less
than eighty. It's elevated if it's from nine, all right
and less than eighty high blood pressure. Now they're saying
one thirty to one thirty nine and eight to eighty nine.
That's stage one officially now stage two one forty or
(12:19):
higher at the top, ninety or higher, so that's stage two.
They've they've made changes over the years, so one forty
or higher. You're now in uh stage two of high
blood pressure, ninety or higher for the diastolic. And now
you're really up there if you're higher than one eighty
and obviously higher than one twenty four the diastolic. But
again you know we're in the holidays as I record
(12:41):
this show. Great gift for yourself for your family. Measure
metrics we can control. You don't have to go to
the doctor. When you go go to the doctor, you get
like six minutes, so fun things, smart things, healthy things
to measure and to start to gauge. This is we'll
go to your cardio and also to your health as
who lose weight. These numbers are going to go down,
(13:03):
all right, not just the scale. We're gonna get off
that pun intended literally speaking. You can still go on it, obviously,
but we're not gonna measure the success as I keep saying,
all right, number six daily steps. Almost everyone has a
phone or some way to measure your daily steps. Really important.
(13:24):
And guess what I'm not giving you that arbitrary ten
thousand step number. That is an arbitrary number. Japanese company
back in the day came out with a device and
they called it in Japanese the ten thousand step device,
essentially based on just they did some math in their
heads basically and came up with that number. Is a
(13:45):
little bit of a science to it, but it doesn't
really matter. If you are walking three thousand steps today,
I want three thousand and one or more tomorrow. But
I don't want five thousand, six thousand. I want a
little bit more that success daily steps a little better
than yesterday. If you did five thousand yesterday, I want
ideally five thousand, one hundred five thousand, and you can
(14:10):
go more. You go a thousand, two thousand more. But
I don't want steps to be too big. I don't
want it to you to get injured. I don't want
you to get burned out. I want you to just improve,
all right. Number seven Sleep Now I'm horrible with this
if you listen to prior shows, I don't get enough sleep.
I go to bed late, I get up early. I
(14:32):
just do. And that's really bad when you do endurance
races where sleep is crucial to rest in recovery when
you're training as much. So I'm working on it. No
one's perfect. And now you've got all these great gadgets
that monitor that. You can also just look at your
clock when you go to bed, but you can have
now these fun different risk based generally speaking monitors, different
(14:56):
watches and bands and things like that. Other ways to
do it as well, but they can even tell you more.
It's just fun. So it's fun to look at these
numbers and see improvement and not so easy. And I listen,
I get excited if I go, oh my gosh, I
got more than four or five hours. I know that's
good for me. And the cool thing about the technology
everybody is that it keeps track of it for you
(15:19):
because we forget. So when you invest in this equipment,
this technology, it's not an expense, it's an investment. You'll
hear me say that over and over. Uh, it's gonna
track you over time. It's gonna do things that you
wouldn't do on your own and to be able to
look back and go, oh my gosh. You know last
month I averaged five hours six hours of sleep. Now
I'm getting seven or eight because sleep. It's connected that
(15:43):
you when you don't get enough sleep to weight gain,
there's obvious reasons for that. But the more sleep we get,
the better. Now that should be said, and I'll do
a separate show about sleep. Some people get by on
much less, so there is some individual variation there. And
a great rule thumb is you shouldn't need an alarm
clock to get you out of it in the morning.
(16:04):
If you're still really tired and sleeping, your your body
is trying to tell you something. Another show there though,
So daily sleep. We got daily steps and daily sleep.
And the fun thing is, again, as I do the
show around the holidays, great holiday gift for yourself for
someone else, not giving you any brands, not pitching anything.
I'm just saying, invest in your health, invest in ways
(16:25):
to track the success of your plan. Are you walking more,
are you moving more? Are you sleeping more? And one
final one I had to throw in there because it
came up another comment someone reached out to me about
exactly what we're talking about. They lost weight, but they're
not losing it right now. But one thing, and oh
my gosh, back when I was a trainer, this was
(16:47):
like one of the single greatest results, almost above this
the scale. So many people are on medications that are
are centered around weight gain and and and things like that,
and and that aren't even related to that depression, things
like that as well. Getting off medications. I left that
till the end because it is so darn important. If
(17:09):
I could swear, I would, and I could, but I
don't want to because I went to church every Sunday
and I'm still a little you know. Anyway. Eight things
finishing with getting off medications. It's so important. Can you
get off medications and be plateaued at your weight? Yes?
(17:32):
Can you gain some weight and get off your medications? Yes?
Are there still connected? There is there core, of course
there is. But all of these things can happen somewhat
independent or at different times in your weight lost journey.
And now you're going to say I am being successful,
and they are more. They're more for other shows, but
(17:53):
I wanted to keep this first one simple and just
stuff today. And if you hate push ups, I get it.
We're gonna wrap this all up when I come back
from the break, but I want you to embrace all
eight of these if they relate to you. You may
not be on medications. So many people are, though, and
(18:14):
that is my favorite thing. I had someone recently say
to me that they were off all their medications. They
weren't at their target weight. So what they were feeling better,
they were moving better, they were sleeping better. Awesome. All right,
(18:34):
when we come back, I gonna wrap this all up.
I'm Tom Holland this is Fitness Disrupted. We will be
right back. Eight ways to measure success that doesn't have
to do with weight loss. There you go, Let's go
(18:54):
through it one more time. Push ups, upper body strength. Okay, now,
I know I'm gonna hear you say, oh, I'm not
gonna do him. Tom, please do this stuff now. I'm
not asking you to do an hour of exercise. I'm
just asking you drop to the floor or get on
the wall and do a couple build up to ten.
(19:16):
I'm telling you that the way to to to bring
this show together is back to self efficacy. That there's
so many articles out there that that even though I
always talk about the simplicity of the process, it is nuanced.
(19:36):
This whole journey I'm talking about health and wellness is
nuanced in a way that is almost impossible to get
into an article or even one show, which is why
we have to do many And the nuance is that
it's all connected. Is that the self efficacy part is
essential belief that you have control, old belief that you
(20:00):
can do it, and my new book coming out that
is an enormous part of it. I start to hold like,
if you don't believe that you have control, then why
even bother it's your genetics you can't get Those are
the myths that I debunk in my book and quite
frequently on this show. You have control, but it's it's
(20:22):
it's suddenly doing things like oh, you you just don't
like push ups, and suddenly you say I'm gonna do
with Tom said I'm gonna try it, and then after
a couple of weeks, a couple of months, you're you're
doing tent push ups off your knees or on your
knees for the first time. I guess what you feel
better about yourself and you get up off the floor
and you go make a better food choice because you
(20:42):
feel better about yourself and you actually are probably nicer,
and you're in a better mood, and people react. It's
all connected, and you feel better about yourself and you
move more. You don't stay on the couch as a
long You do more things. You make better food choices,
you make better choices all the way around. It's all connected.
(21:05):
So push ups, plank, that back pain. Being able to
do thirty seconds of a plank, and again many of
you are gonna go twenty. I'm sorry, two seconds, three seconds.
Take the words only in just out. It's not that
you just did three seconds or you only did five.
That's what you did. That's your starting point. That's the
point of this show. Metrics improvement ways to measure your Listen,
(21:27):
you're getting on the scale. So you started somewhere. Improvement
is improvement, and it's your journey. No one else's squats
love this lower leg issues. So common people can't run.
Why can't you run? What you got weaknesses? And you
don't have to run, But I would like you to
fix the reasons you can't. It's always been insane to
(21:48):
me that doctors just don't run. Hey doctor, should we
figure out why they can't fix that instead of just
telling them not to do something that is health issue.
It's a literally a weakness that is going to lead
to so many other issues. We don't fix that. They
don't have to run, But people need to figure out.
You need to figure out why you can't do what
you want to do and fix it, all right, So
(22:10):
squats just being able to get up and down out
of a chair both legs to start, and if you
start to get super advanced one leg. Resting heart rate,
you can use your fingers, check your pulse and again
this new world of the internet. If you don't know
how to do it, quick google, and if you have
the means and the desire, grab a piece of fitness
(22:33):
technology and watch your phone. So many different ways to
measure that you're resting. Already a great way to start
the day. Get that number and start to see that
number go down. Your blood pressure, same thing, check that
use you know you and your spouse. Those numbers will
go down as you exercise more, and you may not
see the scale go down as much as you start
(22:53):
to see that go down all right, daily steps awesome,
does not have to be ten thousand. Get a baselin,
do it for a week. What's your average, and then
start to beat that average. And again the beauty of
the fitness technology is it stores it all for you.
I love that back when I was a coach. Is
so powerful. You know, you can use a book, you
can use the technology, the online platforms. But before race,
(23:18):
when everyone's freaking out myself when I would do mind,
you go, oh, I didn't train enough because we forget
and then you open that journal, you look online at
your training. Your Holy cow, I forgot how much I did.
Not about the scale. This is about other metrics and
keeping record of it and looking back and being proud
of the changes you've made. Sleep that's one of them.
(23:38):
If you can do it, I'm working on it. Not
very successful at it yet, but work in progress. And finally,
holy smokes, if you're someone on meds and you've knocked one,
two or three. So many people are in so many
different things, the medications have got better, and don't listen you.
Medications are essential for so many people, and never go
off them without your doctor's consent and recommen dation. All
(24:00):
those kind of things. But when your doctor says, hey,
you don't need this anymore. Your blood pressure down, your
numbers are better, your triglyceride, your HDL, your l D,
all those things that I'm saving for another show, Holy cow,
you should be proud of that way more in my opinion,
then seeing that scale go down each and every week
just doesn't work that way. And there you go. Eight ways.
(24:22):
I know some of you like, some you don't, but hey,
embrace what you can. Challenge yourself to do those things
you don't want to, because I'm not asking a lot.
And the self affocacy comes from being successful. That's something
you didn't think you could do. And there are no
small steps, they're all steps forward. Eight ways to measure
(24:46):
success of your exercise routine that don't involve the scale.
Now you have it. If you have a little extra time,
please rate the show. Leave a comment. I read them.
I appreciate them. Tell your friends, tell your family, share
the show. I really appreciate it. My goal is to
help you have your best life. My goal is to
(25:07):
help people live better, look better, and live longer. Look better,
feel better, live longer. And that's awesome and doesn't matter
why you start, you get the other two. I'm Tom Holland.
This is Fitness Disrupted. Believe in Yourself. Fitness Disrupted is
(25:29):
a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from
my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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